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NBA Picks: Thunder vs. Spurs Christmas Day Betting Preview

The Oklahoma City and the San Antonio Spurs will do battle on Christmas Day. Join us in reading our informative early NBA betting preview on this contest, and get an early jump on all the major sportsbooks.

NBA Christmas at the City of the Alamo
The Spurs will entertain the Oklahoma City Thunder on Christmas Day at the AT&AT Center in San Antonio with the opening tip slated for 3:00 PM ET. There were no lines posted on this game at the time of this writing. My educated guess on the opening total in this game would be approximately 197.0 on NBA odds. The point-spread is a tough call at this juncture due to the uncertain status of Kevin Durant of the Thunder and Kawhi Leonard of the Spurs. Durant sat out Tuesday’s home game versus Portland while nursing a sore ankle. Leonard has missed each of the previous 4-games for the Spurs as he attempts to recover from a very rare type of hand injury.

Recent Series History
This will be the first meeting of the season between these Western Conference powers. They met four times during the 2013-2014 NBA regular season campaign, and the Thunder went a perfect 4-0 SU&ATS in those encounters. The teams met again during the 2014 NBA Western Conference Finals series which was won by the Spurs in 6-games.

Thunder NotesThe Oklahoma City Thunder has battled their way back from a terrible start to the season. They lost both of their top scorers in the first 2-games of the season when Russell Westbrook (27.4 ppg/7.2 apg) and Kevin Durant (22.3 rpg/3.6 apg) were sidelined for an extended period of time due to injuries. As a result, the Thunder started the season with a dismal 3-12 record. Since that time they won 10 of their next 13-games heading into Tuesday’s home game versus the Portland Trailblazers, and both of their star players have returned to the lineup. Despite their early struggles, the Thunder is tops in the NBA by allowing only 95.2 points per game, 2nd in defensive field goal percentage (42.6%), and 2nd in defensive three-point field goal percentage (29.9%).

Spurs Notes
The San Antonio Spurs will head into this Christmas Day game on a much needed two days of rest. The Spurs went through a stretch between 12/12 and 12/19 where they were involved in 3-games that were decided in overtime, and that included two consecutive games going triple overtime. They were a 125-118 home winner on Monday over the Los Angeles Clippers, and that victory snapped a 4-game losing streak. That contest also easily went over the total of 203.5, and it marked the 8th consecutive home game in which the Spurs went over the number. San Antonio has also seen 9 of their last 11-games overall go over the total.